


The Definition of Soulmate

by mouseratstan



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Angst, Children of Divorce, Divorce, F/M, Fighting, Fluff, Happy Ending, Holidays, Hurt and comfort, Marriage, Mentions of Sex, Separation, Single Parents, Sonia's POV, Traditions, hearing your parents fighting, protectivedad!Ben
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 08:55:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24468319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mouseratstan/pseuds/mouseratstan
Summary: The first time Sonia Knope-Wyatt hears her parents yelling, it's when she's eight years old.“Motherfucker!” her mother’s voice rings throughout the house, and though Sonia doesn't quite understand that word or what it means, she understands the tone well enough to know her mother is angry. “You jerk! How could you do this to me?”
Relationships: Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt
Comments: 7
Kudos: 85





	The Definition of Soulmate

The first time she hears them yelling, it's when she's eight years old.

“ _ Motherfucker!”  _ her mother’s voice rings throughout the house, and though Sonia doesn't quite understand that word or what it means, she understands the tone well enough to know her mother is angry. “You jerk! How could you do this to me?”

And because she's only eight years old, Sonia’s very first instinct is to go running into the living room. She flings her doll down and rushes past Stephen and Westley, too invested in their action figures to care, slamming doors open in order to get to her parents as quickly as possible. 

It's weird, after all. She's heard them yell before, at the television, or into the phone, or when they're really frustrated and trying to get their kids' attention, but Sonia doesn't ever recall a time where they've yelled at each other. It's worth the investigation.

But when Sonia peaks her head around the corner, the scene is very different than her mother’s tone had implied.

Leslie is red in the face and pouting, her lower lip jutting out, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Across from her, with his back to Sonia, is Ben, his shoulders shaking with what looks kind of like… laughter.

“You jerk!” Leslie continues to pout, and she throws something at him— a multi-colored card, Sonia realizes. Ben laughs harder and tosses the card back to her.

“You can't blame me!” her father defends, hands in the air. “I saw the opportunity and I had to take it, babe.”

“I had one card left! I was right about to win!”

Ben presses multiple cards into Leslie's hand. “I don't hold back on a  _ draw four  _ card for anyone. If you wanna win, try harder.”

“ _ It's hardly a game of strategy!” _

He shakes his head. “We could play Monopoly instead?”

“Honestly, I think we would just end up murdering each other.”

Ben leans across the scattered pile of cards to press a kiss to Leslie’s mouth, and Sonia quickly covers her eyes to avoid looking at it. They do that too much— it's  _ gross.  _ “That's only because you're a sore loser, Leslie,” Ben laughs.

And this time, when her mother starts up her yelling again, Sonia doesn't bother to stick around. She runs back to her brothers with no intention of mentioning it to them. Her mom and dad are okay. Somehow, they kind of always are.

Because Sonia’s parents are soulmates.

***

Sonia has always thought of her parents as soulmates, but it isn't until she's eleven years old that she thinks she starts to understand the word a little bit more.

Or, at least, eleven years old is when she starts to look at the word a little more critically, because she discovers something very important when it comes to her mom and dad.

Her parents are in the kitchen cooking dinner, and for Sonia and her brothers… it's quiet reading time. This is the newest way Ben and Leslie have found alone time, and a way to make the triplets settle down, but to be honest, Sonia suspects it's more for her brothers than anything. Her brothers are the ones who like to cause the messes and knock things off the counters and reenact  _ Stars Wars  _ scenes, while Sonia actually loves the opportunity to sit and read. More often than not, when quiet reading is over, Sonia will opt to pull her mother aside and have a serious discussion about the content of her reading, what it means and how it made her feel.

And today, she wants that more than anything. Because her mother is so smart and has so much to say, and because Sonia has come across a word that makes her pause.

Her fingers slide over the word on the page, reading it over and over again in context.  _ When Emily met John, she fell in love with him at first sight. They were soulmates. _

_ They were soulmates.  _

And it's now, right now, that Sonia realizes she doesn't quite understand the word  _ soulmate  _ like she thought she did. When she heard  _ soulmate,  _ she would picture her parents and those gross kisses they shared all day and everyday, and assumed the word meant something akin to being happy. To being a family. 

But in her book, Emily and John are soulmates because they fell in love at first sight.

Sonia hums to herself and puts her book under her arm, racing down the stairs until she finds her mother, sitting on the couch with a glass of wine between her fingers. She can see her father in the kitchen, hovering over a pot with his back to them, singing some silly song from one of his favorite bands under his breath.

“Hey cupcake,” Leslie grins, looking up when she sees her daughter. “You here to discuss your book?”

Sonia nods, and curls into the spot on the couch next to Leslie. Her mother sets her glass of wine down and pulls Sonia closer, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Mom?” she whispers. “I kind of have a weird question, actually.”

Leslie doesn't seem fazed by this. “Ask me anything.”

“When you and Dad first met, was it love at first sight?”

Her mother instantly starts to laugh, and Sonia looks up to see the smile on her face, the odd look in her eye. “God, no,” she says, shaking her head. “No, I wouldn't say that.”

“What do you mean? Why not?”

“See… I thought he was  _ cute,  _ of course, who wouldn't? But we didn't exactly get along super well when we first met.”

Sonia frowns at this information. “You and Dad didn't like each other?”

“More like your mother didn't like me,” Ben chimes in, and he's walking over from the kitchen now with an apron tied around his waist. “She actually yelled at me  _ three  _ separate times within the first twenty-four hours that I knew her.”

This isn't exactly sitting well with Sonia. They didn't like each other? Her mother  _ yelled  _ at her dad? Three times? “Why did you yell at Dad?”

Leslie and Ben exchange a knowing look, both of them smirking, and Sonia really doesn't understand why they're acting so casually about this. “Your father was being a jerk, so he deserved it!”

“Hey!” Ben laughs, and now he's close enough to the two of them to press kisses to both their heads. “I was just doing my job—”

“While being a jerk—”

“While being… maybe not the nicest guy. But it doesn't matter.”

“Why did you get married if you didn't like each other?” Sonia asks, just wanting to put the puzzle together. If she wants answers, clearly she’ll have to speed this up.

Ben takes Leslie’s hand, and answers his daughter’s question for her. “We only didn't like each other at first. We were being silly. But we got married because we fell in love.”

“You can fall in love even if you don't like someone at first?”

Leslie nods, and brushes a strand of hair out of Sonia’s face. “Sometimes, even when you don't like someone, you can grow to love them.”

“And sometimes,” Ben adds, “it turns out what you thought was dislike, was actually love the whole time.”

And then her mom and dad are kissing again, and Sonia has to wiggle out from under them to get away. They didn't  _ totally  _ answer her question, but… It is the beginning of a years-long study on her parents, and what it means to be soulmates.

Sonia’s got a lot of binders to fill.

***

At fourteen years old, Sonia decides all on her own that she is completely and totally traumatized forever.

And it's all her mom and dad's fault.

It's midnight on a school night and Sonia is up studying for a test. Freshman year of high school kind of really sucks so far, and it's all so new and scary and everyone is taller than her, and her classmates say things that she doesn't understand.

Okay, well, she's starting to understand things from context, but sometimes they're so gross that she pretends she doesn't know and goes on with her life.

Because really, all she wants to do is get good grades, be the top of her class, and make her parents proud. And it's irritating that  _ Westley,  _ her stupid, irritating brother Westley, who never tries at school ever, is currently getting better grades than her. When has he ever really tried in his life?! Why does  _ he  _ get to be so effortlessly smart while she and Stephen have to work hard for every good grade they get?

Her parents are  _ so  _ proud of Westley, and lately it's just been  _ Westley this  _ and  _ Westley that,  _ and maybe Sonia is jealous of the attention. And there's an essay test tomorrow about the importance of government and she’ll be damned if she doesn't get a higher grade than Westley on this one.

Both her parents are successful political powerhouses. There's no better way to get in their good graces than to write the best freaking political essay on the planet and ace this test.

Maybe then  _ Sonia’s  _ test score can be on the fridge again.

She freezes in her studying, because the next section is about Congress. And why should she have to read an old book about it when she actually lives with a real Congressman? She peers at the clock and wonders…

Well, even if her dad isn't up, her mom definitely is, and she can fill in more than enough to help Sonia out (her mother can talk about government for hours, as she's learned, so she's definitely a valuable source here). She picks up her binder and sneaks out her bedroom, tiptoeing past her brothers’ open door— the lights are still on. She bets Westley is up studying too, ugh. So he definitely can't know about Sonia’s valuable source, or she loses her leg up.

But as Sonia approaches her parents’ room, she pauses. There's muffled voices on the other end, and it sounds like… yelling.

Instantly, there's a weird feeling in her heart, like what always happens when she imagines her parents fighting. And it definitely sounds like they're fighting now. She can't hear the words they're saying, exactly, but they're said quickly, harshly, and they definitely don't sound… happy.

And then she hears a strikingly loud  _ smack,  _ and her mother gasps and cries out, and Sonia can't take this anymore.

She slams the door open (Stephen accidentally broke the lock with a nerf gun last week, and she's never felt more grateful for the incident), but as soon as she sees her parents, she kind of instantly regrets it.

She catches her dad in the act of spanking her mother (isn't that just supposed to happen on misbehaving kids? What the hell?) and both of them just so happen to be naked. And though Sonia really has no explanation in her brain for the spanking, she knows enough from her health class to know that  _ she just caught her parents having honest-to-god sex.  _

And all she can really do is scream and drop her binder on the floor, running as far away as she possibly can. She hears her mother curse, and her father call her name, and she prays to God now that she won't have to look them in the eye tonight, but  _ of course,  _ that wouldn't be like her parents at all.

In only a minute, her parents are in her doorway, both properly covered up now in matching blue bathrobes, and Sonia wrinkles her nose at the sight of them. Her mother looks sweaty and her dad’s hair is sticking up in all directions.

“Do we really have to talk about this?” Sonia snaps, burying her face in her pillow. They sit on either side of her, and that's all she needs to know she really can't escape this.

“We just wanted to say we’re sorry,” Leslie says softly, one hand on her daughter’s knee. “Honestly, we kind of forgot the lock was broken and we assumed you all would be asleep.”

“I was studying, Mom! I wanted to ask you guys a question! Ugh, this is so  _ gross…” _

“Again, pumpkin, we’re really sorry.” Ben’s the one to say it this time, but she kind of doesn't even want to look at him because she's still thinking about what he did, burned into her brain like a cursed image that’ll never go away. 

Leslie isn't a little kid that needs punishing, so what the hell was that about? Why would Ben hurt her? And she thinks of the word  _ soulmates  _ again, and she wonders why soulmates would ever raise their hands to each other.

The question bursts out of her mouth before she remembers deciding to ask it. “ _ Why did you hit Mom?”  _

There's dead silence, for a moment, and then Ben is spluttering and stuttering, and Leslie is bright red.

“Woah, wait, it's not… it's not like that—”

“It's not really  _ hitting—” _

“I mean, we shouldn't have to… I… you shouldn't know about things like this—”

“Of course she knows about sex, but  _ this?—” _

“She wanted… it doesn't hurt her!”

“Yeah! I like it, I ask for it, so it's not—”

Sonia collapses backwards onto her bed and groans, back to covering her face with her pillow. “Oh my god, please stop talking about it and please get out of my room,” she begs of them. “We’ll just never mention it again and pretend it never happened, okay?”

They both seem to agree with that, thank God, and they shut her bedroom door on the way out. It's then that Sonia remembers she left her binder sitting on their bedroom floor, all her notes for her test, but she's sure as hell not going back there now.

Honestly, she kind of wishes her parents were fighting instead.

***

At fifteen years old, Sonia goes on her very first date, and it's the first time she's seen her father this uncomfortable.

Ben paces back and forth in the living room, muttering under his breath, and Sonia really doesn't know what to do about it. She rocks on her heels in a dress that makes her feel pretty, her hair curled to look more like her mother’s, and… and then maybe she understands part of why her dad is spiraling.

“Dad?” she questions. “Where's Mom?”

Because it's eight in the evening, and Leslie was supposed to get home at four today. Sonia knows, she had asked her. She was supposed to see her off on her date, she really wanted to meet this boy.

Ben runs his fingers through his hair and doesn't let go, grabbing fistfuls. His hair has gotten much longer recently, not bothering to keep it cut. Not bothering to shave. “At work,” he mumbles. “Late. Again. I tried to call her, but she didn't answer.”

Sonia frowns. “Are you mad at her?”

“I just…” Ben frowns, squeezing his eyes shut. It seems impossible for him to take a deep breath. “I'm just frustrated. That she didn't warn me. Because she knows this is going to be hard for me.”

“Me going on my date?”

“Good lord, don't… don’t say date, okay? Just don't say date.”

“But that's what it is, Dad.”

“I don't care,” her father snaps, and Sonia winces. “Just… when does he get here?”

“Should be any minute now.”

Ben groans again, and Sonia doesn't really understand why he's taking this so badly. She really likes this boy, and he's so nice to her in class. Honestly, she's kind of liked him from the first day of school when he sat next to her in Chemistry, and she also likes that he is  _ very good at Chemistry.  _

And when you kind of really like someone from the first moment you meet them… that could be soulmate material, right?

And she looks at her dad and how he’s losing his mind without his wife here, how he's upset but trying to hide it, angry and pretending he isn't, and she wonders one more time what makes her own parents soulmates.

“This boy… Ryan, right? He better not touch you.”

Sonia rolls her eyes. “What, so I'm not allowed to hold his hand? Don't worry, Dad, I'm actually going to do this right. I'm not going to yell at him three different times.”

And that was meant to be an innocent comment, but suddenly it doesn't really feel like one.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Ben snaps.

But there's a knock on the door, and she knows Ryan is here, and god, Sonia really wants to get out of here as quickly as possible before she can overthink that exchange too much.

“Nothing, Dad. It's nothing.”

She leaves her dad still pacing around the living room, staring at his phone for a call, and she wonders if this is how soulmates make each other feel.

***

Only one week after her first date with Ryan, Sonia hears her parents really fighting for the first time.

And from the sound of it, it's not their first fight of this nature, just the first time it's gotten out of control enough to allow the triplets to hear it.

Because she was in Stephen and Westley’s room, talking about one of their teachers at school, when the yelling started, and now all three of them have their ears pressed to the door, hands over their mouths.

“— I don't understand why you won't hear me out on this! I've told you how I feel, and you won't listen—”

“No, no, don't give me that, Ben, you haven't once told me how you felt. Not once.”

“You know I’ve been upset about this!”

“Then talk to me! I mean, God, I thought we were past having communication problems, but all you've been doing for months now is either pretend like you're not mad, say you're fine, and sulk. You make passive aggressive comments everyday, but I'm in the wrong here?”

“Leslie, you know I have a problem being confrontational—”

“ _ Not with me, you shouldn't!  _ I am your wife, Ben Wyatt, and you should talk to me about things that make you upset instead of lying and saying you're fine. No problem is going to be fixed if you say nothing.”

Stephen shudders from next to her, and even though the three of them are teenagers now and well past the point of being affectionate towards each other, they find themselves grabbing hands, squeezing tightly.

This is new territory. But apparently it's been going on for months.

Ben and Leslie have been fighting for months?

Sonia thinks hard, and suddenly she can't remember the last time she saw them kiss. But that doesn't mean anything, right? It just means they've gotten more private about their kisses, since that day Sonia caught them having sex. That has to be it, it's the only thing that makes sense.

Ben’s voice is back, the yelling loud and clear, to the point where the triplets don't even really need to strain to hear. “Tell me, though, Leslie, how exactly am I supposed to talk to you when you're never here?”

“That's not fair. I'm Governor now—”

“Don't give me that. We’ve always had big jobs, we’ve always been busy, and important, but that's never stopped you before. We’re supposed to be a team.”

“And we are!”

“And yet, I feel like I never see you anymore! You don't even warn me anymore when you're going to work late. You don't wake me up before you leave in the morning, and,  _ shit, Leslie,  _ you started eating dinner alone! Did you ever wonder how that makes me feel? And the kids?”

“Don't bring the kids into this—”

“ _ Too late!”  _ Ben hisses, and Sonia winces, holding tighter to her brothers. “Everytime you eat dinner at work, they ask me where you are. You know that, right? And I want to wait on dinner for you, but you don't even text me anymore for updates.”

“Don't put this all on me! This is the first time you're telling me any of this, don't you think this could've gone a lot better if you communicated before you exploded?”

“Don't… don't even pretend. We’ve had this argument, just not with this much honesty.”

“And that's kind of fucking telling, Ben, that this is the first time you choose to be honest with me.”

Sonia's had enough. She doesn't want to hear anymore. She pushes away from the door and sneaks into her bedroom, fighting the tears that threaten to spill down her cheeks.

She opens up one of her binders and writes a title on a fresh sheet of paper.

_ What is a soulmate? _

And honestly, she really, truly, doesn't know.

***

Two weeks before Sonia turns sixteen years old, she and her brothers are sitting in front of Ben and Leslie after school, and the air is cold.

Neither of them look happy. Ben keeps his hands shoved in his pockets with his gaze on the floor, and Leslie is grinding her teeth, her eyes wide and red.

“Your father and I are separating.”

It's said so suddenly that for a moment, Sonia doesn't think she heard it right. And she stares at her mother and waits for an explanation, the words echoing in her head, making no sense at all.

_ Your father and I are separating. _

That has to be some kind of joke, right? Because Ben and Leslie are in love and they're supposed to be together forever. There should never be a reality in which Ben and Leslie are not together, where they can't find a way to make it work.

_ “What?” _ Sonia gasps. And she doesn't want to hear the words again but maybe she kind of needs to if she's going to make any sense of them at all.

“Does that means you're getting divorced?” Stephen asks.

Leslie bites down on her bottom lip, and refuses to meet Ben’s eyes. “We’re not entirely sure yet,” she says. “Maybe.”

“We’ll have to see,” Ben adds, and his voice sounds shaky, unlike himself. Like he's trying very hard not to be broken. “Right now, it's like… a test run. To see if we’ll be happier this way.”

They won't be.  _ They won't be.  _

Her parents are supposed to be happiest with each other. They always have been. Staying apart won't help anybody at all.

“Why?” Sonia can't help but ask, but there's no point. Westley runs out of the room as quickly as he can, his face bright red, and Stephen mutters something about meeting a friend, following quickly after his brother. Ben and Leslie look terrified and all Sonia can do is sink her nails into the couch cushions, trying to ground herself.

“That's a long story, pumpkin,” Ben finally whispers. “For another day. Are you going to be okay?”

_ No.  _ “Yes.”

Ben grimaces. He always knows when she's lying, but now isn't the time to call her out on it. Not when Ben’s only pretending he's okay, too. “Okay, well, I'm… I think I'm gonna pack some things up. Just real quick. We’ll talk more about this later.”

And Sonia kind of hates her dad in that moment for leaving, for turning his back on her and on her mother. The door is barely closed when Sonia starts to cry, wiping the tears from her cheeks. And Leslie doesn't help. Leslie is motionless, blank faced and tense.

Sonia has never felt more alone in her life.

“Mommy?” she croaks.

Sonia doesn't remember the last time she called her  _ Mommy,  _ but sometimes certain types of fear will elicit that kind of response.

“Yeah, cupcake?”

“What's a soulmate?”

Because if Sonia doesn't ask now, she never will. If she doesn't ask, she’ll never find out, and she's been wondering for too many years to just give up on an answer. She's filled too many binders with notes and questions and observations to let this be a loose end in her life.

Because she needs to know if her parents are soulmates, before they're really split up. Before there's no turning back.

Leslie starts to smile, just briefly, enough to give Sonia hope that maybe her answer will be a good one.

But then a tear slides down her cheek. “I honestly don't think soulmates exist, babe.”

And Sonia kind of thinks she's right about that.

***

On Halloween, Sonia and her brothers spend the day in Ben’s new apartment.

Because things are apparently so fragile between her parents that they need to have a schedule for living with them.

Because apparently they can't even stand to live together anymore, even if they're not sleeping in the same bed.

And when they drop the triplets off at each other’s houses, they can't even get out of the car to speak to each other.

“Why aren't you dressed up, pumpkin?” Ben asks her, because all Sonia can manage to do is sit on the couch and pick out of the candy bowl. “I thought we would go trick-or-treating.”

Sonia sighs and pops a skittle into her mouth. “We’re sixteen, Dad, none of us want to do that anymore. And don't pretend like you do, either.”

And that comment makes Ben pause, and Sonia catches the shaking of his hands, the way he almost drops the second candy bowl to the floor. “What are you talking about? I love trick-or-treating.”

It's a ridiculous act, he's putting on, because there has never been a point in Ben’s life when he could pretend to be chill when he isn't.

“You're trying really hard to be like Mom,” Sonia tells him, and she doesn't even care if it seems harsh. “Like nothing can touch you. Like you're fine. But don't even try to pretend, Dad. You don't wanna go trick-or-treating. You’d rather go crawl in bed and sleep.”

This time, Ben actually does drop the candy bowl, brightly colored wrappers flying everywhere. The bowl rolls over and hits Sonia’s foot, and she doesn't even bother to pick it up. She just looks up from her own skittles bag to stare at her father, to wait for the truth to come out.

“Where is this coming from?” Ben asks her, and now he sounds hoarse, unsure, and he grabs his own hand and runs a finger along the empty space where his wedding ring used to be.

Sonia shrugs. “You're depressed. And you're acting like you're fine, as if your own kids don't know you. And you're so tightly wound that honestly, I think you should just let it out and cry.”

“I don't need to cry. There's no reason to cry.”

“You're already crying, Dad.”

And he is. He obviously didn't realize it until it was too late, and now he's rubbing the sleeves of his red plaid shirt into his eyes as if to push the tears back in, as if they never happened at all.

“Just go to bed, Dad. It's only Halloween. Get some sleep.”

“Don't… don't talk to me like that,” Ben snaps, and his eyes are red now, and God, he looks so hurt. “Don't talk to your father that way. It's none of your business how I feel.”

She glares at him, slowly standing up from the couch to see him better, her skittles long forgotten. “It  _ is  _ my business because I'm your  _ daughter,  _ and you and Mom have made this our problem! You made this our problem when you moved out and made us switch between houses. You made it our problem, and now you have to deal with us asking about it. Own up to your own faults, Dad.”

_ “Go to your room, Sonia!”  _ Ben yells, and she's so glad for the breakthrough in his emotions that she can't even really be upset that it's directed at her. “No more Halloween. Just go.”

“Good!” she huffs. “I already told you I didn't want a damn Halloween in the first place.”

And Sonia doesn't slam her bedroom door, but Ben slams his, and all she feels for him is  _ pity.  _ Because once upon a time, Ben Wyatt thought he found his soulmate, just for their relationship to end the same way it began.

With yelling.

Later, Sonia feels bad for the way she snapped at him. And maybe she did step a little out of line, because he still is her father. But when she creeps over to her dad’s room, she instantly knows it's best if she doesn't say a thing.

His door is slightly ajar, and she can hear him crying. It's midnight, and he’s sobbing into his pillow in the dim light of his room, on top of a twin bed that he bought only so the empty space next to him wouldn't be so noticeable.

Sonia shouldn't watch, but she catches a glint of something on his bedside table, something that he's staring at, crying at, something he decided to keep, even after everything.

A picture from their wedding, in front of that wildflower mural in Pawnee City Hall.

And his wedding ring.

***

Sonia feels like she doesn't see much of her mother anymore.

She knows it's because she's spending all of her time burying herself into her work, fighting back her emotions with paperwork and and rallies and meetings and anything she can do to help the people.

Because when Leslie Knope can't help herself, she helps the people.

And she does what she can for her kids, there's no doubt about that. Anytime the triplets are with Leslie, she leaves breakfast out for them, packed lunches to bring to school, and has food delivered when she's going to be working late (AKA, almost every night). She leaves a binder with projected activities and movies for when they're bored, instructs them to get their homework done before dinner, and leaves little handwritten post-it notes all around the house for them to find.

And that's fine, really. Except for the fact that Sonia doesn't get to see her mother at all until they're heading to bed. And Leslie flies into the house in a hurry, her heels clicking against the hardwood, pressing kisses to each of their foreheads before shutting herself in her bedroom to work some more.

Sonia knows Leslie isn't sleeping. She hardly ever sleeps in the first place, but she knows just how bad it is when she wakes up on Christmas Eve to see her mother struggling to remember the difference between salt and baking soda.

“Mom,” Sonia snaps, quirking a brow, and Leslie responds with a smile so wide it's considered creepy.

“Sonia! Merry Christmas, it's a great day, right? A beautiful day, man, I just… I just love this holiday.”

Sonia doesn't point out that this Christmas isn't like any other. Because the tree is only half decorated (she and Ben used to take turns doing it), none of the lights are on in front of the house (Ben used to climb the ladder to get them up), and they’re still not sure what they're eating for dinner (Ben was always the chef, Leslie the baker).

No, she doesn't mention that this used to be her parents’ favorite holiday. That they would take this opportunity to give each other way too many gifts and place mistletoe  _ everywhere  _ just for an excuse to kiss the other.

Sonia doesn't mention that Leslie’s eyes are bloodshot with bags underneath because she spends every night crying instead of sleeping. 

She doesn't mention that this is Ben’s first Christmas without his family.

She doesn't mention that Leslie is wearing Ben’s  _ Letters to Cleo  _ shirt that never got returned but certainly doesn't smell like him anymore.

And Sonia  _ definitely  _ doesn't mention that none of the family scrapbooks and photo albums are out, because one of Leslie and Ben’s long time Christmas traditions is to look through their wedding scrapbook together.

But that does kind of give Sonia an idea.

And while a couple months ago, she threw out any of her notes on what a  _ soulmate  _ is, she thinks she might finally be starting to understand. She thinks, maybe, she might actually have an answer for the question that has plagued her for years.

Because when two people break up, that's it. It hurts, and then they move on. They get over it. They meet new people and they stop crying and their heart doesn't ache everyday from what they lost.

But when two  _ soulmates  _ let each other go… Well, her parents wouldn't be hurting like this if they weren't soulmates, right?

And goddammit, Sonia just wants her Mom and Dad back. She just wants to hug both of them at the same time and pretend like she's eight years old again, when everything was so simple and all was right in the world.

She clears her throat and watches as her mother struggles to make breakfast.

“Hey, Mom? Can I invite someone to dinner tonight? I know it's Christmas Eve, but… they don't really have a family to go to right now, and I feel bad.”

Leslie nods and voices her utmost encouragement, and Sonia can't help it— she starts to feel hopeful.

***

Ben knocks on Leslie’s door at six in the evening.

He has a small bag of presents and a bottle of whipped cream in his hands. He's dressed nicely, in slacks and a button down, his hair styled perfectly. He definitely spent way too long in front of a mirror for this.

Sonia feels a little bit bad about not warning her mother that the friend she was inviting was, you know, her  _ soon-to-be ex-husband,  _ but the reaction kind of makes it worth it.

There's no screaming. No angry glances, or snide looks. She doesn't demand he leave and he doesn't insist on an apology.

No, they just look at each other. Maybe they both start to cry a little, just barely. Because it's the first they've looked in each other’s eyes in months.

“Ben,” Leslie breathes. “Hi.”

“Hi, Leslie,” Ben mumbles. “I, uh… I brought you some whipped cream. You probably have some, obviously, but I just thought…”

“That there's never enough whipped cream?”

Ben sighs in relief. “Yeah, exactly.”

So Leslie lets him inside the house. She takes his coat, pauses with her hands on it. Their fingers brush as they pass the can of whipped cream. They exchange tiny, tentative smiles. And Sonia and her brothers watch with bated breath.

It's a surprisingly pleasant night.

They work well together in the kitchen. Ben helps her cook the rest of dinner and at one point, Sonia can even hear them giggling, soft and unsure, but laughing nonetheless.

And when dinner is finished and they're stuffed with pie and whipped cream, Sonia sets a large book down on the table between her parents.

Their wedding scrapbook.

They reach for it at the same time. They scoot closer together on the couch until they're almost touching. They smile at their photos in comfortable silence. They smile at each other.

Ben doesn't go back to his apartment that night.

And Sonia goes to bed that night feeling happier and lighter than she has in months. She doesn't hear yelling even once that night, but she didn't think she would. Her mom and dad are okay. Somehow, they kind of always are.

Because Sonia’s parents are soulmates.


End file.
